Given his specialism in western movies, it’s unsurprising that John Wayne had a fair few frequent collaborators across almost five decades as a Hollywood star among the community of actors who made their name in the genre. But two actors in particular shared a screen with him more than twice as many times as anyone else.
The first of these actors was Ward Bond, who also shared a college football field with Wayne at the University of Southern California before they both went into acting. And it was Wayne’s mentor, John Ford, who brought the two together on a film set.
However, the two actors didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, as Wayne was horrified by Bond’s unprofessionalism while they were both playing extras in the sports movie Salute. “The last player to arrive, an hour late, a dollar short, one pocket torn, and a gin bottle hanging out of the other, was Ward Bond,” he later wrote in an unpublished manuscript he intended to be used for his autobiography.
Still, they’d go on to develop a lifelong friendship alongside the various films they starred in together. There are 23 films overall, with all-time greats of the western genre among them, like Ford’s The Searchers and Rio Bravo, which was directed by Howard Hawks. The year after this latter movie was released, Bond suddenly died of a heart attack, leaving the gun with which Wayne had once accidentally shot him to his great friend and co-star in his will.
So, Bond starred alongside Wayne the most?
Had Ward Bond lived for longer, he might well have taken the mantle of John Wayne’s most frequent co-star. As it is, he just comes up short. Fans of Bond can still be proud, though, that he leaves acting giants like Bruce Cabot and Maureen O’Hara, the female actor who co-starred with Wayne on the highest number of occasions, in the dust.
There’s one other star, however, who outdid even the Duke’s old buddy Ward. An actor who was perennially cast in minor and supporting roles throughout his 54-year career but wasn’t typecast in any single genre. Aside from his appearances on screen with Wayne, his acting credits include Giant, one of James Dean’s three films, and the Oscar-winning drama To Kill a Mockingbird.
Yet it’s alongside Wayne that Paul Fix achieved his greatest successes. They first appeared together in 1931’s Three Girls Lost, with Fix in an uncredited role. And they’d subsequently share the screen no fewer than 26 times, including the early pre-war western classic The Desert Trail, 1948’s Red River, which saw Wayne adopt his anti-heroic cowboy persona for the first time, and the last great Hawks western El Dorado.
The final collaboration between the two actors came in 1969 with The Undefeated. By now, they were old friends and both close to retirement. Wayne and Fix would pass away within four years of each other, in 1979 and 1983, respectively. Their deaths placed a full stop at the end of the golden age of Hollywood westerns. Cinema had already moved on by then, but between them, these screen legends left a legacy Western fans cherish to this day.